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Title: Akan tone encoding across musical modalities
Musical surrogate languages like talking drums remain understudied in the linguistics literature, despite their close connection with the phonetics and phonology of the spoken language. African surrogate languages tend to be based on tone, making them a unique angle for studying a language’s tonal system. This paper looks at the encoding of Akan tone in three instrumental surrogate languages: the atumpan drums, the seperewa harp, and the abɛntia horn trumpet. Each instrument presents different organological constraints that could shape how the tone system is transposed to musical form. Drawing on novel data elicited with musicians in Ghana, we show that all three systems are built on a two-tone foundation mirroring the Akan tone system, but with subtle differences in the treatment of downstep and intonational effects like phrase-final lowering and lax question intonation.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1943896
PAR ID:
10511370
Author(s) / Creator(s):
;
Publisher / Repository:
Studies in African Linguistics
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Studies in African Linguistics
Volume:
52
Issue:
1and2
ISSN:
0039-3533
Page Range / eLocation ID:
160 to 188
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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